New Delhi: Hours after former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif suffered an angina attack at a hospital in Lahore Saturday, talks of his political victimisation by the ruling government once again started doing the rounds.
Sharif’s party and the country’s main opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), had earlier raised alarm about his failing health and accused the Imran Khan-led government of deliberately refusing medical care to the leader.
Sharif was rushed to the Services Hospital earlier this week from the Lahore office of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the country’s corruption watchdog, with critically low platelet count. By Wednesday, his health had worsened and the former premier was diagnosed with acute immune thrombocytopenia.
A three-time prime minister, 69-year-old Sharif was moved to the NAB on 11 October from the Kot Lakhpat Jail, where he has been serving a 10-year sentence after being convicted for corruption last year.
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History of political victimisation
As the news of his angina attack broke Saturday afternoon, critics once again lashed out at the Pakistani government for allegedly neglecting the former PM’s deteriorating health condition. Senior journalist Murtaza Ali Shah said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government and NAB had colluded to “break him down”.
Nawaz Sharif suffered a heart attack in Services Hospital. For months he was denied important medical care, PTI govt & NAB colluded to break him down. Same is being done to asif Ali Zardari. The reality of ‘corruption’ cases is known to all. PPP & PMLN say these are murder plots.
— Murtaza Ali Shah (@MurtazaViews) October 26, 2019
Another senior journalist Gul Bukhari similarly called the news “very alarming”.
Very alarming news coming in. Condition has suddenly worsened. Reports coming in that Mian Nawaz Sharif has been put on Oxygen & ventilator is on standby.
— Gul Bukhari (@GulBukhari) October 26, 2019
The stream of criticisms against the government has, however, been steady ever since reports about his ill health had started surfacing.
“If thrice-elected PM dies in this manner of neglect and inaction, it would be nothing short of an assassination – motivated by pure vengeance. Let us not forget our humanity,” Pakistani lawyer Yasser Latif Hamdani had tweeted.
Given the fact that Pakistan has had a history of political victimisation, including the execution of former PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Sharif’s alleged mistreatment by the government has triggered anxiety in the Pakistani civil society.
“Foyr (sic) decades after PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s judicial murder, thrice-elected Pakistan PM, Nawaz Sharif, faces elimination through lack of medical care in prison. Treating political rivals as enemies to be destroyed is hardly the recipe for making Pakistan a normal country,” Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani diplomat who is now living in exile in the US had tweeted.
Pakistani journalist Cyril Almeida, in the meanwhile, had also shed light on how political victimisation in Pakistan is a vicious, never-ending cycle.
“… this kind of stuff sets up perpetual conflict… perhaps NS (Nawaz Sharif) never forgave Mush (Gen. Parvez Musharraf) for not being able to bury his father in Pak (Pakistan), then he was kept away from his wife before her death… who’d blame Maryam/Bhutto kids if the seeds of retribution are being sowed?” Almeida had asked.
Govt’s laxity exposed
In January 2019, Sharif’s doctor had said that his condition was “very serious”. In May, the Pakistani Supreme Court had approved a six-week bail to the former PM for medical treatment.
At the NAB office too, Sharif’s health kept deteriorating but he was allegedly not allowed to visit a hospital. According to reports, he was only transferred to a hospital Monday after his personal physician, Dr Adnan Khan, raised an alarm about his critical condition.
The report further adds: “According to the medical tests carried out on Tuesday, the platelet count of the former premier dropped from 16,000 to a critical level of 2,000…prompting the medical board members to go for immediate transfusion of platelets to save his life.”
The government’s laxity towards Sharif’s failing health was exposed when a letter written by the former PM’s physician to the director general of NAB on 16 October was made public. It alleged that Sharif was not even provided with the medial facilities that he was getting at the Kot Lakhpat jail.
“It is no secret that Mr Sharif is suffering from numerous life-threatening diseases and requires specialised medical attention round the clock,” the letter said.
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Mian Nawaz Sharif is arguably the best Prime Minister Pakistan has had in a very long time. Not allowed, ever, to complete his democratically secured term. The manner in which he is being treated is shameful, hollows out what is already an incomplete democracy. For that matter, Asif Zardari too is being treated badly. The generals can keep their bungalows and golf courses – also their apartments in London and bank accounts in Switzerland – but not be such an intrusive, debilitating, malevolent influence over a Pakistan’s public affairs.